


13x21 Coda

by interstellarstorms



Series: Episode Codas [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cage Trauma, Canon Temporary Character Death, Coda, Episode: s13e21 Beat the Devil, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Resurrection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14689941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarstorms/pseuds/interstellarstorms
Summary: The scene between Lucifer and Sam from Sam's perspective





	13x21 Coda

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I'm so late to posting, I wasn't initially planning on writing this.  
> I did not have a beta so I apologize if it isn't very good. I might do a rewrite later, I just wanted it posted before the finale aired.

The first gasp was unbidden, like a drowned man from the bottom of the deepest sea. He sat upright with a start and knew he was panting for air but it was like static. His mind was nearly blank apart from the shock of the moment but as the moment wore on, it was as if the fog was subsiding on a desolate landscape. 

The first things to come back were sensations: the ground beneath him, the coolness of the air, the quiet surrounding him, the metallic smell of blood. For some reason, his hands instinctively shot to his throat, even though his mind was still too empty to recall why. All he could feel was the roughness of his stubble and the sharp rise and fall as he struggled to catch his breath. That’s what was so strange; there was no particular feeling, no pain. Yet somehow, that felt so wrong. And that was when the emotions began to resurface.

Initially, it seemed like it was just confusion, but confusion never felt so sinister. Then came the realization that he was terrified. And in that moment, a whirlwind overcame him and he looked around the room: terror, devastation, grief, and familiarity. He was almost afraid he might vomit, or even worse, that he might cry. But still, he couldn’t explain why. In an attempt to regain control, he stood up, continuing to search for something, expecting  _ something _ , although he couldn’t recall what.

_ “Boo!”  _

That’s when the memories flooded back into him like a tidal wave, nearly forceful enough to knock him over. He was Sam Winchester, and he had died. And he’d been been here before.

A cold laugh. He spun around. He knew that cackle. He knew that face.  _ Lucifer. Again. _ “Hey, Sammy.”

“No,” he whispered, willing it to not be real, willing himself to still be dead. It felt like panic rising in his throat, except “panic” was a word used for how Sam felt around clowns and pitch darkness. There were no words to describe the feeling of looking into the face of the being who had flayed, tortured, disemboweled, and assaulted him in every way imaginable for time longer than the human mind was built to comprehend. 

The devil grinned over at him. “Yeah. I mean you could do the whole pinch yourself, rub your eyes thing or you could put on your big boy pants and just, you know, cut right to the realization that yep, it’s me.” Sam could only look back with resentment, trying to subdue the flashbacks rushing through his head. Lucifer in Jessica’s form, invading his deepest sleep. Lucifer smiling serenely in the mirror after using Sam’s body to kill. Lucifer tearing the flesh from Sam’s broken form. Lucifer invading every part of Sam. Lucifer taking every vulnerability that Sam had and violating it. Lucifer keeping Sam awake so long he lost his mind (never mind they said it was all in his head). Lucifer taking the form of his best friend in the world besides Dean and forcing Sam to watch. Lucifer the first time Sam was resurrected, that same ease about him, watching as Sam pieced it all together from the blood on the carpet and the knife that had fallen from his hand. 

“You, you..” he stuttered, “you brought me back?”  _ Again. Against my will, when I would much rather have died.  _

“I did! You’re welcome.” Lucifer said happily. It was the same tone he’d used when Sam would beg after his body and soul could take no more. It was the tone that told Sam that even death could not help him escape his fate. The same tone he’d use at the end of every day in the Cage, telling Sam that it wasn’t so bad, that deep down, Sam knew he deserved it and he wanted it. It was awful: casual, sarcastic, and so familiar. It hadn’t been like that last time Lucifer had brought him back--no, this voice had only come after the Cage. After hundreds or thousands of years of torture, Lucifer had slowly lost his formality. It was a cruel mockery to Sam’s consent that he did it, to talk as if they were friends, “roommates” or “bunk buddies” as Lucifer put it. It was a reminder of the eons they’d spent together, Sam’s flesh being ripped or melted from his body, his body itself being violated countless times over.

“But why?” Sam pleaded, hoping that he didn’t sound as desperate as he did in his head. Sam knew Lucifer well enough at this point to know what vulnerability got him, and that was not something he desired to relive.

“Uh, well, I’m getting to that,” Lucifer sounded irritated at Sam’s deviation from whatever script he had built inside his head, a script in which Sam always immediately complied. If the cage had taught him anything about the devil, it was that rebellion never went well. While Sam thought it was necessary to keep up the fight, after the first few hundred years, it was nearly unbearable. Scratch that--it  _ was _ unbearable, to begin with, and it was at that point that he had begun to lose the will to keep going. 

Sam forced himself back into the present. And when was that again? Cage? No. Oh, yes, alternate universe, he remembered. A sudden realization struck him. “The rift! The rift,” he exclaimed, thinking back to how he had arrived in this mess. “Rowena!”

“Oh, she’s okay,” Lucifer assured him. “I mean I-I  _ was _ gonna kill her, but she blasted me here before I had a chance to, so,” he trailed off, “‘s great, self-defense. I was coming here anyway.”

“But we drained you!” It just wasn’t fair. Nothing ever was with Lucifer. He’d fight and he’d fight for good, and all he’d gotten was the worst Hell could offer.

“So...how did I have the juice to pull off my little Lazarus trick? Ah, that’s a long story, but I was basically  _ tracking _ you here, and then I came across a handful of Michael’s angels, and I...ate ‘em. Guess its not really a long story, is it?”  _ I don’t fucking care,  _ Sam wanted to respond, but having just come back from death yet again had drained him. It was taking a lot to even physically stay on his feet.

“”What do you want?” The first time he’d been in this position, at least he had known the reason. Lucifer had wanted his true vessel, and that meant he needed Sam. In the cage, every time Lucifer would tell him the reason for the day’s torture: revenge, boredom, indifference. Here, it was beginning to feel as if there was no point to it at all.

“What do I want? I want what  _ everyone  _ wants, I want a personal apology from Pop. I want rerun-free, year-round episodes of ‘Drag Race’.”  _ Sick fuck.  _ Lucifer played at human well, but Sam knew better.

“Yeah, got it, okay, right. We’re done here.” Sam said conclusively, impatiently, wanting desperately to put about a hundred thousand miles between himself and Lucifer. He bagan to make his way out, quickly as he could, truly not expecting to get very far. Nothing was ever so simple, yet he prayed anyway that it somehow would be. 

“Are you going? Here, it’s dark out there.” Lucifer responded nonchalantly, handing a flashlight to Sam, who bewilderedly accepted. He clicked to button to turn it on so the light shone onto the ceiling of the cave, watching as Lucifer nodded, and then lowered it. He tensed with a start: the vampires. They were everywhere.

“Yeah, they’re sort of all over there and I’m holding them back. They’re just waiting for a little snap of the fingers but I didn’t want them flooding in here and eating ya again, until we’ve finished our convo.” Sam watched them snarl. It was a horrific, messy death, but it didn’t look so bad from where Sam stood. All he wanted to know was why, anger surging through his veins.

“ _ What _ do you  _ want _ ?” Sam shouted, fury and fear overwhelming him.

“I want what you already have: a relationship with my son” Sam looked down. It was impossible to look Lucifer in the eye.  _ Jack. _ Sam could see his face now in his mind’s eye.  _ He’s only a child,  _ Sam thought,  _ and the closest I’ll ever have to a child of my own. _ “Okay, there was a time where I would, you know, just  _ grab _ him, but I’ve grown.”

“Yeah, sure you have.” Sam exhaled, attempting sarcasm in spite of how his mind was screaming in horror and fear.

“I have, Samuel. I want my son,” he said seriously, “and you’re gonna help me.”

“How?” Sam tried to keep only his confusion on his face, but he was afraid he felt the desperation leaking into his features, and his horror. Even after the years of torture, this kind was new, and Sam could feel how much Lucifer relished in it. He had a new weakness, and Lucifer knew it.

“Well, I don’t feel like he’ll give me a chance unless I come bearing gifts. Yep,  _ boop! _ ” he added at the disgust on Sam’s face and poking Sam. “That’s you.” Sam could feel his chest go cold where Lucifer had touched him. It was a feeling he never got used to. Even after all this time, after all the places he’d felt it. It was beyond unnatural. 

“Look, Sammy, I’m not asking you to  _ like _ it or to like me, all I’m asking is that you acknowledge the truth: that I was the one who brought you back to life and I was the one who lifted you from the darkness, and into the light.” Impatience was seeping into Lucifer’s voice, bringing back the millions of times Sam had heard it like that before. “Okay?” There was a pause. “Apocalypse world, Michael’s armies, you really think you and your family can handle that stuff alone? You need me.”

“And what if I say no?” Sam asked, summoning all his courage and defiance to stand up against his long-time torturer. That damned hope, somehow he couldn’t give it up. 

Lucifer cleared his throat. “Let me just make this  _ really really really _ easy, easy enough for even you to understand, Sammy. I’m getting to Jack, one way or the other, the only question is, you coming with, or that?” He said, gesturing at the vampires--Sam’s death sentence, or were they the world’s? In either case, Sam looked out at them, watching them snarl and fight against the invisible wall that seemed to separate them from him, feeling sick to his stomach in way only Lucifer could cause. “Your move, Champ.”

Sam could only stare back, heart sinking. There was a long pause in which Sam could thought back on his options. The only way he could see was to go along, try to derail Lucifer later, as he had by jumping into the pit. Lucifer smiled as a tear fell from the tall man’s eye. Sam shuddered as Lucifer reached forward to wipe it away, just as he had the first time Sam had killed himself to escape.  _ So much cold. No escape. _

“Promise me you won’t hurt him.”


End file.
